Bonne Annee!

(I want to start with an apology to my in-laws, Bob and Cheryl, or as the French say with tongue firmly in cheek, mes beau parents (my beautiful parents). I failed to mention, and this goes for future guests, that when you stay in our guest room you become potential subjects in the stories for our blog. )

If my blog fuel from the past 3 weeks were a pile of dirty laundry, we'd have nothing left to wear. Unfortunately, it's not, meaning that I don't have something motivating me to deplete the pile. As it is, it just keeps piling up. I have more stories from the Christmas vacation than I could ever hope to tell in one blog entry. So, instead I'll tell as many as I can over the next few days.

10th Anniversary

Much to my surprise, Dana has been able to stay married to me for 10 years now. Our anniversary was on the 19th of December, and I wanted to do something special. I had joked for a while that I would be sure to take her to a French restaurant for the special occasion, which, considering where we live, could have been McDonalds. Instead I decided that the two of us would spend the day on the slopes. We would begin by taking a lesson together and then spend the day skiing and hanging out at the ski lodge. It was sure to be memorable if not romantic.

I don't mind saying that we were amazing. A local artist was so impressed that he created for us his interpretation of the day.

Ok, a bit of an exaggeration. But it looks much better than the truth: Dana searching for her skis and poles after smacking her head on the ice and me yelling at our instructor for being vague and lazy. I'm quite certain that learning to ski would have been much easier in our pre-30 something days. Eventually, we got the hang of it and enjoyed ourselves, but it took some work. What didn't take work was lunch, we're experienced veterans in that category. Hot chocolate and delicious mountain food full of cheesy calories goes good anytime, but is perfect after a morning of careening down a mountain in a mixture of vertical and horizontal positions. The bottom line is that we certainly had a memorable anniversary and we have even been back once since. Maybe we'll have it figured out by our 20th anniversary.

Christmas goodies.

Like any good culture, the French mark popular holidays with food. There are a couple of Christmas traditions worth mentioning. First, for Christmas and the days preceeding, there are the buche de noel or Yule log. It is a traditional log shaped cake. Absolutely delicious and worth the high prices paid for the hand made versions.

The second tradition may not be as delicious, but is certainly more interesting. It is the Gallete des Rois or Cake of Kings. It is odd that a country with substantially less Christian influence than the U.S.A would have a religious tradition that is non existent back home. It is a cake or pastry meant to commemorate the 3 kings visit of baby Jesus. It is even somewhat chronologically correct in that the you eat the treat after Christmas, which is probably when the kings arrived rather than on the same evening, which is often suggested by the ubiquitous nativity scene.

Despite the strong presence of Christianity in the U.S.A, this tradition could never be adopted there. Not for religious reasons but for litigious ones. The cake comes with a gift (remember that's what the 3 kings were about) baked into it. The person who finds the prize gets to wear a paper crown that comes with the pastry. The toy is usually a ceramic rendition of a king or some other character and it is roughly the same size and shape as your tracheal opening. In America a parent would have their children taken away by DCFS for letting their children play with a toy of this size and in France it's baked into this tasty treat that kids will devour with gusto.

I don't know that much about the presence of lawyers in France, but it must be considerably less. They've either never let them get such a foothold or they've followed through with that joke about 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean being a good start. Either way, its refreshing, that they call an idiot an idiot and don't let someone sue for not expecting coffee to be hot.

Eating out

In lieu of a vacation over Christmas we decided to visit various locations within a 2 hour radius of our home. This translates, happily, into many meals eaten at various restaurants. This list of new things tried by ourselves and Dana's folks is long and delicious. The oddest of all was a delicacy that I have mentioned previously. Tripe, or cow's stomach. Other's tasted it, but, obviously, I was the one who ordered it. It was battered and fried with garlic and parsley. It tasted like garlic and parsley with a slightly chewy and crispy texture. The tripe itself had bascially no taste. It was neither delicious or disgusting. I'm guessing that it became a delicacy of Lyon, France simply because it would be unique. Nobody else would bother to make a big deal about it, so it becomes your "thing".

No offense to my in-laws, but any slight chance that Dana and I have of not appearing to be non-natives disappeared when they were along for lunch. It takes a little time to even be able to say "Bonjour" without it being a dead give away. If you just come to visit, chances are you won't get it down. Dana and I can just now say it without being dead give aways. Now, it's not a big deal, everyone is friendly regardless. However, we did experience some problems that I had been warned of in the guidebooks.

The French are big on "menus". You pay one price for a 3 course meal, but you get to select among different entrees, plates, and deserts. A great idea and it normally works well. The problem is that 3 different times our desserts were added on top of the menu price that was supposed to include the dessert. I have become an expert at the french version of the following phrase "Doesn't the menu price include dessert?". It always resulted in a surprised look, an apology and an adjusted bill. Again, this never happened close to home, only in "touristy" locations. I'm not ready to stop going out to eat, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

Roman Ruins

Nothing too funny here, just amazing. We live 2-3 hours North of the region of Provence. The city of Nimes if full of Roman ruins. While they have less ruins than Rome, they are actually in better shape. Not too surprising when you consider that Rome has been burned and sacked plenty of times in the last 2 millineums. The southern French portion of Gaul has been quiet by comparison.

The first, and most impressive, that we saw was the Pont du Gard. It's an ancient Roman aqueduct. As I read a plaque at the site Audrey asked me,"How old is it daddy?" I was even surprised when I replied "Well, they started building it 20 years after Jesus was crucified."

50,000 ton of stone and no cement. It's amazing. I won't bore you with more details but here's a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard

The other amazing "ruin" is the ampitheater. The word "ruin" isn't really correct because it's still used today. It's half the size of the Roman Colliseum, but in much much better shape. Back in the day, 24,000 could cram into it to watch gladiator battles. Now it is used during the spring and summer for bullfighting. (Remember, it's only about 3 hours from the border of Spain).

Again, here's a link. I plan on going back for some of the bull games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_of_Nimes

Well, that's enough for now. I'll try to do some more in the next day or two.